Meet Instagram's Youngest Investor, He's 26 And Made A 2X Return In One Week

Just days before Facebook acquired Instagram for $1 billion, a few VC firms bought a piece of the company.

Greylock Partners, Sequoia Capital and Thrive Capital all invested $50 million in Instagram at a $500 million valuation last week. Sources tell us they weren't expecting Instagram to exit quickly. They expected to be with Instagram for the long haul, helping it grow into a massive company. Facebook wasn't a part of last week's funding talks at all.

Since launching Thrive, Kushner has made an impressive portfolio for himself. His investments include crowdsource funding site Kickstarter, payment company Dwolla, home decor site Fab, discount glasses retailer Warby Parker, and learn-to-code company, Codecademy.

Dwolla, Warby Parker and Codecademy were some of the most desired funding rounds among investors last year. Dwolla, for example, had inbound requests from more than 700 investors. Kushner was one of a handful to work his way into the deal.

Kushner is extremely well connected. Aside from his impressive list of advisors, he's also good friends with Ashton Kutcher, whom he met through his brother, Jared. Jared owns the New York Observer and is married to Ivanka Trump. Kutcher and Kushner have invested in several startups together, including Dwolla and Fab.

And in most cases, Instagram included, making a 2X return isn't ideal for an investor -- investors seek a minimum of a 3-5X return on their entire fund and often seek returns of 10X+ on individual deals to get there. Instagram's quick acquisition is more lucky for Kushner than telling of his portfolio management talents.

Still, with exits like GroupMe, HotPotato and Instagram, Kushner is returning capital quickly to his LPs and rapidly building cards for himself, which is mostly what matters in the venture game anyway. And he'll be able to play those cards to get into future financing rounds at hot companies and continue proving himself as an investor.